View full sizeThe Oregonian/2008Ross Chapin at the Salish Ponds cottages.

New Urbanism symposium: Three experts in sustainable home design -- the time-tested, low-tech kind, not the fancy-solar-panel kind -- will be speaking at an event Friday and Saturday, March 25-26. The annual summit of the Cascadia chapter of the Congress for the New Urbanism will also feature tours along the streetcar line and evening receptions, as well as the symposium.

Home heating: For those who are trying to lower their cost and carbon footprint for home heating, it's important to note that the nature of the heat source, home insulation and so forth are not the only factors. Another is simply how warm we want or expect our homes to be -- and that's changed over the decades (and centuries). Consider this question from the BBC: How warm is your your house? (Here's a Celsius-to-Fahrenheit converter to help as you read.)Mobile homes: As a proof that sustainability has gone mainstream, witness the change in mobile homes, which have not been noted for their energy-efficiency.